


A Northern Fairy Tale

by thedarkpoet



Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 17:58:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedarkpoet/pseuds/thedarkpoet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There are strange things done in the midnight sun <br/>By the men who moil for gold <br/>The Arctic trails have their secret tales <br/>That would make your blood run cold"<br/>-Robert W Service, from 'The Cremation of Sam McGee'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I did not always believe in fairies.

Certainly not the way my mother did, anyway. I had no time for her little snow sprites or winged pixies.

We lived together with my father in a tiny little house built by my great-great-great-grandfather when the land in our country was cheap and almost entirely unexplored. I used to think that if ever I laid my hands on a magic spell, I would like to travel back and ask him what he had been thinking, to build his home somewhere so inhospitable.

Our village is so small that it doesn’t have a name, and even the few homes we have built are mostly abandoned. Here, the sun sets for four months at a time and we live in a world of cold and snow and ice. The rest of the year is near as cold, and even in the height of summer the blue ocean ice doesn’t melt entirely. Little green plants try their best, but nothing here lives for long.

Except us.

My mother will tell you we have been blessed by the fairies. Every night for as long as I can remember, she has gone out into the night before she sleeps to light the ring of tiny little lamps that are strung around our small shack-home. Every night, she leaves a tiny saucer of milk outside the door. And when morning comes, and the milk is frozen and the lights blown out, she smiles and cleans the saucer for another night.

In a bigger world, the one of which my father talks, neighbours might notice my mother’s little practices and wonder, but there are very few people who can brave the north, and none of them have time for another’s superstition.

Our nearest neighbours are the family of my best friend. Her name is a long and complicated mess of syllables that I have never wrapped my tongue around, but her mother told me that it meant ‘little north star’ and since then I have called her Star. Star’s family is huge, and so is her house. She lives with parents and aunts and uncles and brothers in a long low building made of concrete and well insulated from the cold.

Star does not believe in fairies either, but she does believe in spirits: hollow things that haunt every rock and snowflake.

A strong cord stretches between Star’s long home and our little one, drawing a diagonal across the L our houses make. In the crook of the L is the schoolhouse. It is nearly as small as my home, but the schoolhouse is an open room, full of wooden desks and coloured chalk and the piles of newspapers that are delivered every month. The pride of the school room is the computer, a white, squarish device that we are not allowed to use. The computer is for my father’s research, sent with him before he was shoehorned into becoming a teacher for me and Star’s family and Anuk, who lives farther into the snow than any of us. My father likes to say that he fell into a fortunate profession. When Star’s grandmother asked him to teach her progeny, my father brought out all his books and slowly transformed his portable office into our permanent schoolhouse. Since we learn from his books, we learn sciences: math and physics and meteorology. Sometimes my mother joins us to tell stories, or one of Star’s uncles shows us how to gut a fish or skin a seal (though this is always outside).

In this way, I have learned three stories of how the universe came to be.

The first that I remember is the one my father likes. The one that says that everything in the world was once smushed into a spot smaller than you could see. Everything was so squashed that it eventually blew apart, exploding into the earth and sun and sky. And my father will say, look Janey, and he’ll show me one of his books where such things are written and they have pictures of stars close up.

But this doesn’t convince me, because Star’s family also has a book, although theirs is smaller and has no pictures. It is written in a curving hand, in a language I don’t know and Star refuses to teach me. Their book tells the story of the girl named Sedna, whose own father cut off her fingers, so they could fall to become the creatures of sea.

But I don’t like this story either, because I don’t like the idea of such a horrible father. No, of the three, my mother’s story is my favourite, even if I don’t quite believe it. 

In my mother’s story, the world did not exist because all the light in the universe was trapped in the realm of the fairies. The fairies did what they always do in tales: they sang and danced and ate and drank and made mischief.

In the fairy kingdom, there was a king and queen, who were more beautiful and wise than any of their subjects. They alone knew the location of the door to the rest of the universe, but they had never dared open it. They were far too clever to risk the dark, and so all the fae were happy.

It happened one day that the king’s brother was visiting the palace when he came upon a room he hadn’t seen before, a great empty hall with a long tapestry hung on the wall at the far end.

Now the tapestry was the most beautiful thing that had ever existed, and the king’s brother was entranced. He flew across the hall on silver wings until he hovered before it. Colours danced across the thread, and faces grew and fell in the cloth.

As he watched, a faery woman appeared in the tapestry, more beautiful even than the queen, too perfect to be real. The king’s brother reached out to her, forgetting that there was nothing but cloth before him. As he touched the cloth, it twitched aside to reveal a golden door.

The king’s brother, held in the thrall of the faery woman, and convinced she was on the other side, wrenched open the door.

There was no woman, but his actions sent light spilling into the universe, and let just the slightest bit of darkness into the faery kingdom.

The king knew immediately what had happened, and used his magic to slam the door shut. But it was too late to undo what had been done.

“And now, little Jane, little fae child, you can see what happens when a fairy opens the door,” my mother would say.

“What?” I would ask, knowing the answer but loving the story.

“Why, we see fairy lights in the sky,” Mother would say. “Too much magic to be any use but beautiful all the same.”

“You’re filling her head with nonsense,” my father would say, fulfilling his part of the ritual.

“You married me for my nonsense,” my mother would reply.

I don’t believe any of these stories, and I have heard them more times that I can remember. They are my reminders that there is always another way to see the world. And when the nights are dark and lonely, with the wind howling around our tiny house, I think about that world.

It is on just such a dark night that I make my way over to Star’s house. The line strung between our houses provides safe passage during storms, but it is clear night, clear enough I can easily see the faery light overhead - what my father calls the Aurora Borealis. It will not last long - we are coming into spring and the nights are growing shorter. A glance over my shoulder shows me that my mother has already lit her faery lamps; they light the deep wide prints of my snowshoes all the way back to our front door.

Knocking at Star’s front door is always a production. I know all of her cousins and brothers (though their names are just as long as hers and twice as complicated), but they always treat me as if they’ve never seen me before. And when I ask for Star, a long call goes up through the house. Star’s family calls her Mikki, and the name fairly echoes from the walls. By the time Star finally arrives, the whole house knows I’m visiting.

Ikiak, Star’s second eldest brother, answers the door this time. To my surprise, he doesn’t call for Star, but waits with me in the mudroom as I pull off my snowshoes and coat. He makes a show of pretending he doesn’t know me until I pull off my hood.

“Little Jane,” he exclaims, golden skin crinkling around his eyes. “I thought you were a snow wraith. Thank goodness you weren’t eaten by one.”

Ikiak is much older than I am, practically a man grown. When he wraps me in a bear hug, I think I can feel my ribs creaking. My head only comes to the middle of his chest, and I am so thin that Mother often says she despairs of me to grow at all.

Star appears around the corner. When she sees me, she squeals and swats Ikiak away.

“You’ll squish her to death!” Star says, and I am inclined to agree. Ikiak releases me and slouches off with a good-natured grin.

“Everyone’s gone a little stir-crazy,” Star says, her voice a conspiratorial whisper. “The truck’s never been so late.”

“I think they were just crazy to begin with,” I reply, and she giggles. Star is just my height, for all she’s two years younger. She’s a round, golden person, with long, long dark hair and slim dark eyes. I look pale and washed out beside her, like a snowman instead of a person.

“Ikiak was to drive back this time,” Star says, to explain her brother’s odd behaviour. Underneath her giggles is a very real concern. The truck is not really a truck, not like the one pictured in Father’s books. It’s a huge flat-bed with an engine and spiky treads for the snow. When it arrives with the newest shipment of food and firewood and gas and newspapers and a hundred other things, someone from Star’s family loads up one of the snowmobiles and rides with the truck-driver back to town. When the truck reaches town, the lone man turns back to ride his way home on the snowmobile.

Star’s male relatives treat the chance like it’s the most exciting adventure possible, but Star and I have our own adventures.

We’re off on one today. It’s still dark out, but we’re both awake, and I can tell from Star’s twitches that she’s tired of her family. With so many, even their long house can feel cramped.

Star runs off to tell her mother and I wait in the warm little mudroom in the yellow light and piles of boots and snowshoes. When she returns she’s holding her best parka and the battered yellow radio with the scratched red panic button.

We both have to dig through the coathooks to find our adventure clothes. A parka and boots are enough for a short trip, but I keep all my true weather gear at Star’s house. 

Going out into the cold means layers; it isn’t yet warm enough to be shoddy with clothes. Fur leggings first, and then my good sealskin boots laced up over them. Dark overpants that smell like plastic slide overtop, tight over my boots and leggings to hold warmth in. I’ve already layered up a bit, but I add another jacket, and then my parka.

Star is just doing up her snowshoes as I yank on thick mittens. A thick wooly hat covers my wispy brown hair and we are ready to go.

Just as Star reaches for the door, someone knocks from the other side. She opens the door and Anuk stands there, his golden face red with cold and his dark eyes bright in the outside lights. Behind him I can see the dogs, gorgeous wolf-like huskies hitched to Anuk’s little sled.

He doesn’t say anything right away and we stare at him blankly for a minute before he clears his throat and asks if he can put the dogs away.

“Just come in for a minute,” Star said. “I’ll get my dad.” 

Anuk tries to step inside and we all spend a moment trying not to trip over each other in the crowded confines of the mudroom. Then he is safely on the other side of us and our snowshoes, and Star calls for someone in the house. Ikiak appears again and we go out into the cold.

Star insists that we take Anuk’s huskies to the kennel around the back. Of course, once all of the dogs are in the guest pen, Star has to visit with all of her own huskies. By the time she is ready to leave, Anuk is coming out the back door to check on his dogs. I give him a wave as we set off into the snow.

Walking through the snow is heavy work, even for me and Star, who practically grew up on snowshoes. We don’t talk as we tramp out across the open plain. Far below us, under mounds of snow, is the sea ice, still frozen solid from the winter past. There are tracks in the snow, but not many. A few brave birdprints, and one rabbit trail, weaving across the ice. Since so few plants can live here, almost all of our animals are sea-dwellers, kept safe by the salty waters and the botanical riches they hold on their beds.

Eventually we reach out destination; an outcropping of rock that juts out of the snow in an irregular mound. Brushing it off reveals dark stone broken up by some lighter type in waves. Star clambers to the top and sits, legs dangling. I climb up beside her.

The moon is nearly full and huge in the sky, casting silvery light on the snow that stretches endlessly before us. There is one tiny splotch of darkness that pierces that white - Anuk’s house. A curl of smoke rising up marks the invisible boundary between the sea and the island on which Anuk’s home stands.

“Look,” Star says, pointing into the sky. At first I think she is pointing at the fairy lights, but then I see it - a small wheeling shape. 

“What is it?” I ask as it dips down, then soars upward again.

“I think it’s a crow,” Star says, half-reverent. There is another story in Star’s handwritten book that tells of a crow who brought light to the world in his black beak, but I have never seen a crow before.

Suddenly the maybe-crow falls. Not a controlled dive but a fall, straight down to the ice. Half a second later we hear a crack, like the scare-guns Star’s uncles use on bears.

“Oh,” Star says, choking over the word because she covers her mouth with a red mittened hand.

I’m staring too, and I know what Star wants to do.

“Star, we can’t.” 

She gives me a look, her eyes wide.

We can hear shouting from across the ice, voices hollow and echoing from the snow.

“Jane…”

She lets my name sit there, a helping of guilt. It’s silly anyway, because she knows I’ll do it. Star can talk me into anything.

“Star, last time we did something you wanted, I had extra chores for a week.”

“But it was fun and you know it,” she says immediately. The last time we’d done something she wanted we had pulled a prank on Saghani, a cousin not much older than us, by pouring ice into his boots and mittens and hats, so that he was doused in cold water. It had been fun.

“And we’d be helping a poor injured crow,” Star wheedles. “And we’d get to see a crow. Have you ever seen a crow?”

“We don’t know it’s a crow,” I say weakly, but I am convinced.

Running in snowshoes is difficult but we manage a wide-legged flailing gallop. The compass that sits in the centre of the radio keeps us pointed northwest, towards where we saw the crow fall. Without any landmarks, it is easy to get lost on the ice.

Sometime later, I stagger to a walk and Star does the same. There is no sign of the crow, and there are clouds gathering in the north, fuzzy and hardly visible against the sky.

But they are coming in fast.

“Star,” I say, and I reach out for her arm. At that moment, the radio crackles.

It’s not for us - it’s Ikiak, announcing that the truck has arrived. But it snaps Star out of her single-minded quest for a crow. She looks up and sees the clouds I’ve spotted.

“Storm,” she says, voice muffled behind her woollen scarf. I nod, and I think for a moment she’s going to see sense.

And then we hear it. Barely a sound at all; a harsh and broken caw. Star turns immediately and we see it.

The crow is lying broken on the ice, black wings spread and blood turned black in the moonlight is growing in a puddle around its head. But it’s the wound that confuses me. For though I was sure I had heard a gunshot, it is an arrow that pierces the crow’s wing. A golden arrow that makes me shiver to look at it, parting bone and feathers. As we watch, the arrow turns gray and crumbles into ash on the ice. Blood spurts from the crow’s wing and it makes a rasping whimper.

I stand from my crouch and shiver. The wind has picked up, gusting little clouds of snow and pelting them into my eyes. The lights of home suddenly seem very far away.

Star is still low beside the bird, cooing to it. She’s sensible enough not to try to touch the injured wing, for the crow is going to die. I don’t need to have seen one to recognize a fatal wound.

Star finally looks up when the wind twists her hair out from her hood, making long streaks of dark across the ice.

“Star, we should go,” I say and she finally, finally gets up. The crow flaps feebly in the snow and makes another harsh whimpering sound. Star half turns, and I grab her hand, towing her away. The clouds are thick above us now, blown in by the fearsome wind. We should hurry back.

We are perhaps halfway back when the snow begins to fall. Star keeps darting glances back towards the crow, but it’s soon invisible in the swirling snow. I focus on the lights of home and move forward solidly, but the wind picks up underneath my snowshoes, and icy snowflakes are dashing into my eyes. Soon the snow obscures everything.

Total whiteout.

Star seems dazed beside me, so I wrench the radio out of her stiff grip and thumb the panic button. A squeal of static bursts from the speakers, barely audible over the wind. The radio begins the regular whine of the panic signal, but peters out abruptly. As sparks fly from the yellow casing, I swear I can hear laughter on the wind.   
All my knowledge, learned from Star’s family and at my mother’s knee, is telling me to stay put. I know that where we are now is somewhere near home. If we start walking now, who knows where we’ll end up? All that is left to us is the cheap compass embedded in the radio. No guarantee of getting home safely.

But Star keeps moving forward. I try to pull her back, but talking is out of the question in the howling wind, and she won’t hold still. Her grip on my fingers is like stone, and no matter how hard I try to pull away, she keeps moving inexorably forward. Even if I could get free, I wouldn’t let her go alone.

The snow gets thicker, if possible. It should still be too early for snow. The bitter chill of winter isn’t over, and we usually don’t see our first snows for a month at least. It’s strange too, and I keep thinking I see lights, little glowing snowflakes among their duller brethren. 

Eventually the snow gets so deep that I begin to stumble, even in my snowshoes. Star’s hand slips out of mine, her iron grip released. She’s invisible with her next step, hidden behind a wall of snow.

I want to cry, to call out to her, but the wind snatches my words. I can’t stand up under its terrible force. I crawl a few steps more before the wind defeats me entirely. I slump into the snow, and the cold embraces me.


	2. Chapter 2

Despite all of my efforts to stay awake, the cold makes me doze, and I wake up when someone runs over my head with a sled. At first, I hear just the runners skimming the surface, and then a thunk with impact. The wood thuds against my hood and shocks me awake.

I am buried in snow. My hands and feet and face are numb, and I can hear the slow beat of my heart. Then a dog barks and feet plant in the snow, stomping over to where I am buried. Hands and dog paws dig at the snow, and I am hoisted out of my icy prison. I can’t tell who it is, all bundled up for the cold, but he shouts for someone through the radio and I can see blurred figures come out of the house.

In a way, it is a good thing that I fell, for we are far from the houses, almost at our lookout rock. We would never have made it home. And then I think of Star, but I’m too tired to cry.

My rescuer yanks his scarf away from his face and I see that it’s Anuk, looking terrified. He’s talking to me, but I can’t hear him through my hood and the echoes, and I can’t make my lips move to tell him so. He wraps the scarf over my face where my own has fallen away, covering my nose and mouth until only my eyes peer out. Anuk hoists me onto his sled. I try to help, but my legs won’t work, not after a night cradled in frigid snow. He is still talking, his voice garbled and indistinct. Still, it is comforting to hear someone’s voice. And then he calls to the dogs and we are flying across the snow.

It takes just seconds to get back to Star’s house. There’s a clump of people gathered outside, dark against the snow. When we get close enough, they rush forward as one. Hands lift me, arms go around my waist and shoulders and I stumble into the mudroom. My mother is there, stroking my face, but I can’t even feel her fingers through the mask of cold.

When we reach the house, most of my helpers turn, heading back out into the snow. It is a relief when the door finally slams shut behind them. I am left with my parents and Mother An, Star’s grandmother. They are arguing, but I can barely understand them. My father says something about a hospital, and Mother An flicks my scarf at him. She shoos them out with quiet words, and they join the searchers outside.

The door to the house proper swings shut as they go, blowing blessedly warm air towards me, and I stumble toward it. Mother An puts her hands on my shoulders, pushing me back so I sit on the bench. She is small but her wrinkled hands are strong. She latches the mudroom door and turns back to me. I can’t understand why she doesn’t want me to be warm, but I am too tired to try and get up. 

Mother An regards me sternly for a moment, then begins to pull off my outer gear. I try to help, where I can, but the numbness is coming out of my hands and feet, leaching into pain. Even the chilly mudroom air feels like a furnace on my frostbitten fingers. Mother An clucks her tongue when she sees the red and puffy digits, and is careful not to jostle them when she pulls off my coat. By now my clothes are all vaguely damp, full of melted snow. She goes into the house and returns with an armful of Star’s clothes. She drops them on the bench and folds her arms, gazing at me expectantly. Pain stabs through my fingers as I pull away my musty clothes, but I get them off and slide into Star’s warm ones. My ears are burning, but I finally feel as if they’re no longer muffled.

“Come,” Mother An says. She takes my arm and guides me into the house.

I spend the rest of the day warming up and worrying. Star’s relatives come back in pairs, but they have nothing to report. They’ve searched the area they found me and as much of the surroundings as they could, but the sun is dipping back towards the horizon now. The whole lot of them come back for hot food and flashlights, and they venture out again as I sip my steaming chicken soup. My parents stop briefly. We don’t speak - my bones ache, and their faces are drawn tight with worry. My mother strokes the hair off my forehead and then they’re gone again.

Mother An remains. She has lit the gas stove, and little blue flames flicker out at me from beneath the pewter pot of water sat on the burner. I fall in and out of sleep, but those the lights stay, flickering like the snow flakes falling into the glow outside the window. Someone rummages around in the mudroom and I hear the muffled scrape of snow being shovelled away from the door. But the snow keeps falling. Eventually, Mother An opens the door to the dogs to let them into their indoor pen, and a mountain of snow falls through the door. The dog run has been practically buried, and the dogs roll in, coats caked with snow. Their quiet snuffling and sharp barks are familiar sounds and I doze off again.

When I wake, Star’s family has returned. My mother is sitting on the couch with me, holding my hand and sliding my fingers in between hers. It stings, but I feign sleep a little longer to here what the grown-ups have to say.

“We have to keep searching,” Star’s mother says in a tone that brooks no argument. There is a murmur of agreement.

“It has been too long, Akna. We will not find her while the snow still falls.”

That voice is unfamiliar and I peek out from under my lashes to identify it. I suppress a start of surprise when I see that the speaker is Anuk’s father.

“We cannot give up now!” Nauja, yet another cousin, cries. “If we wait for the snows, we have no chance.”

“You don’t care,” Akna says, an edge of desperation in her voice. “She’s my only daughter!”

Anuk’s father takes an angry step, shoulders high. He looks as if he wants to strike Star’s mother.

Mother An stands up.

“Akna, Qilaq knows his own loss. And he is right. The snow is too much.”

“We’ve been blundering around in the snow for hours, Aunt,” Suka says, twisting out of a scarf. “We cannot hope to find her like this.”

“I could call the town,” my father offers. “They might be able to get us a helicopter.”

“It would take too long and you know it,” Akna says. She is still so angry.

“What about the dogs, then?” my father asks.

Anuk’s mother, Tikaani, shakes her head. “The dogs are for sleds, not tracking. They aren’t trained.”

Star’s mother shouts, a sharp and angry sound. I jerk a little on my couch. My mother is alert instantly.

“Jane, are you awake?”

Star’s mother is looking at me guiltily. Mother An herds them out of the room, though I can hear their voices as they move into the bedrooms.

My mother strokes my hands with hers and I wince. She drops them like hot coals. They feel like hot coals.

“Jane, why were you out in a snow storm? You know better than that.”

I want to tell her about Star and the crow, but she pulls me into a hug and words come out muffled.

“We were so worried,” she says. She lets me lie back on the bed and goes to join the rest of the grownups.

I can’t understand the rest of the conversation, but I think Akna wins. They all file out, and Nauja leads the dogs outside. Mother An turns out the lights for me and goes back into her room. In a few minutes, her loud snores issue out from under the door. I close my eyes and try to sleep again.

I have strange dreams. I fly on the back of a crow with a golden pebble clutched in his beak, but his wings get tangled in the Northern Lights and I tumble into the sea. I land in a boat with a man who has no face. Star clings to edge of boat, dangling in the cold water. I reach to help her in, but the man pulls out a terrible knife and cuts our fingers off and they fly away like birds. There’s no blood but Star reaches for her hair and screams and screams.

I wake up shuddering, as if my body has forgotten it’s out of the snow. I wait for it to pass, but I can’t seem to stop shaking.

The mudroom door bangs open and I nearly fall off the couch. Outside, the snowmobile engine roars and dies. Ikiak is back.

Its still dark outside the window, but I don’t know how long its been since the storm began. I’m surprised Ikiak made it back at all in this terrible snow.

But it’s definitely him, silhouetted in the mudroom lamp. He’s shaking snow off his hair, but seems none the worse for wear. He snaps on the lights and spots me watching from the couch.

“Sleep-over, little Jane?” he asks in a stage whisper.

I shake my head and shiver again, and he seems to realize that something is wrong.

“Star is missing,” I say in a thin voice, mindful of Mother An’s snores. It suddenly seems very dark in the house.

“Where is everyone?” Ikiak demands, his voice sharp against my quieter words.

“Looking for her, of course,” I say, still trying for quiet. The walls are solid concrete and well insulated, but it feels like I’m shouting.

“And why aren’t you with them?” Ikiak is turning back to the mudroom, but he stops when he sees my puffy fingers. “Ouch. Snow wraiths really did get you this time, little Jane,” he says, almost smiling. “What happened?”

I tell him, the first person to listen to the whole story. I leave out the golden arrow.

He’s quiet after that. The snow piles silently against the window, trying to bury us.

“I’m sorry, little Jane,” he says, patting my aching feet. Then he pulls on his hat and heads back outside.

They search for hours more, but they don’t find Star. Mother An has me sit up and feed myself, and the swelling in my hands and feet begins to go down. I still ache, and flinch away from every draught through the mudroom door.

Akna is the last to return, brooding like the sea and lashing out at everyone. Anuk and his parents ride home through the snow, their sled aglow with lanterns.  
But Star is nowhere to be found.

As soon as I can walk without limping, my parents and I return to our little shack. My mother tucks me up on my high bunk with a book and a mug of precious cocoa, in an attempt to distract me from her whispered conversation with my father below. I gaze aimlessly at the carved walnut balustrade to my bed and eavesdrop.

The words ‘not safe’ come up often. When I go to sleep, they are still arguing.


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning I wake up to incredible cold. At first, its just an instinctive scramble for mitts and parka, but when I open my eyes, I see why.

My bed is covered in snow. Amazed, I peer over the ledge to see that the rest of the house resembles a snow drift more than a kitchen. The door is wedged open, buried in the heap of the snow. On the top of the heap is a perfectly balanced porcelain bowl filled with milk. 

Pulling on my cold-weather gear, I jump from my balcony bed into the snow below. My feet don’t hurt anymore, though the impact shocks up through my legs.

The bowl doesn’t so much as tremble.

Outside, the sun is a bright spark in the white and empty sky. It has finally stopped snowing. I try to shut the door, but the snow is too high.

Another glance shows that my parents bedroom door is also covered in snow. Opening it reveals a solid wall of white, and thats when I begin to panic. I dig away at it with a saucepan that had been pushed to the floor by the snow invasion.

I’m relieved to find that the snow hasn’t packed the entire room, but what I find when I finally dig all the way through is still more terrifying. 

My parents are lying in the bed like mummies, hands folded on chests and gazing blankly upward. Their skin is blue with cold, and the snow covers them like an extra blanket. No amount of shaking will wake them up, but I can tell that they aren’t dead. I measure my father’s slow pulse and brush the snow from my mother’s dark hair, but I can’t do anything for them. I need help.

I can’t find my snowshoes in the snow so I go without. It is a short but difficult walk to the mudroom door in Star’s house. The snow is up to my waist, and the cable is long buried. No one has shovelled around the door, so I use my trusty saucepan to excavate the doorknob and get it open.

Star’s house is eerily silent. There’s more snow here, but the lights won’t come on when I flip the switch, and it is bitterly cold. As I fumble around in the dark, I knock into someone. There’s a violent crash, the sound of breaking ceramics. 

“Are you OK?” I ask, my voice instinctively muted by the oppressive atmosphere. There’s no reply. I finally lay my hands on a flashlight and snap it on.

I don’t scream, even though I want to. 

I’m faced with a terrible tableau - Star’s family members are as frozen as my parents. They stand like soldiers, caught midway through a conversation. Akna has her arms thrown in the air, her mouth open to yell at Star’s father. The cousins, mugs in hand, are gathered around the unlit stove, looking down at a pot full of frozen water. Star’s uncles are standing knee deep in a snow drift, arguing, their expressions frozen in angry scowls. Their skin in blue and cold under my fingers, but I can still find a heartbeat.

The person I knocked was one of the cousins. She is still stiff as a board, for all that she’s tumbled the floor. The handle of her mug is clenched in her frozen fingers. Her eyes seem terribly dead in the glaring light of the flashlight.

I shake shoulders and grab hands but no one responds. The house is quiet as a tomb.

And then a harsh caw breaks the silence. I snap the flashlight off as quick as my mittened fingers can manage and move towards the sound. It’s coming from one of the bedrooms, and I creep as quietly as I can in my clunky snow boots. As I shuffle along the floor, I hear other sounds: yips and barks, quick chirps and croaks. The frigid air fills with a musty animal smell, and I spot two crows in the doorway to Star’s room, twitching their feathery tails in a irritable manner. They are larger than they ought to be, and they are cawing urgently at each other.

As I get closer, they start to sound less like crows and more like they’re speaking actual words.

“She’s not here,” one of them says. His voice is rough as sandpaper, and his oily feathers are falling out.

“We’ll find her, Patch,” the other crow snaps, his beak clacking. “Didn’t you send Winston to check the other shacks?” His wings flap out with the question. Patch, the other crow, dances up and out of the way with a few beats of his wings.

“Of course,” he croaks, a little breathless. “Of course I did, Doran.”

Both crows turn into the hall and I duck into a doorway, holding my breath so it doesn’t steam into the air.

There’s a sudden scuffle and a yelping sound.

“Harot!” Doran the crow screeches. “What are you doing? Get them under control!”

“Did you see that?” an unfamiliar voice whines. “He tried to kick me! Filthy brute!”

I peer around the door frame and see that the crows have turned away. There’s no sign of Harot but his yipping voice, speaking so fast that the words tumble over each other.

“I can’t believe we’re here!” Harot continues. “What are we looking for, anyway? The King-“

Doran darts forward with incredible speed, and there’s another anguished yelp.

“You aren’t worthy to speak his name,” the crow says scornfully. “Ground-dweller.”

I’m leaning half out of the doorway to try and see what’s going on, but a thud on the floor pushes me back. I pull my head in just in time to see a hare at the end of the hallway. His coat is white for winter, and he is still covered in snow. He marches by in a few lithe bounds and comes to a sharp halt outside Star’s room, his ears straight and quivering at attention.

“Winston,” Patch says, wings slumping with obvious relief.

“Sir,” the hare says, nodding to Doran, his ears performing their own separate bow. “No sign of the girl, sir.” His ears do a little salute every time he says the word. 

Doran gives a little hop of impatience, wings pulled in tight.

“She should be here,” he says in his screechy voice.

“Gredvel said he hadn’t found anyone either,” Winston the hare continues. Despite his attentive stance, one of his long flat feet has begun beating against the door.

“Well she’s not in here,” Harot says peevishly. 

Winston twitches his ears in irritation, snow slipping off into the puddles around his feet.

“You might talk to your rather uncouth cousins outside, Harot,” the hare said, twisting as if examining his snowy pelt. “They were most rude when I asked them for information.”

“They’re not my cousins,” Harot whined. “Dogs are nothing like foxes.”

“Shut up!” Patch screeches, swatting out with his oily wings. Water drips onto his feathers, beading down from the ceiling, and he skitters out of the way.

“The spell is wearing off,” Doran croaks. “We are out of time. Winston, tell Gredvel to stay and keep searching. If he finds the girl, he is to send a messenger right away, and only take her if she notices him. Harot, take your glamour back from Patch and rejoin the dogs - report anything of note to Gredvel.”

“Do I have -“

“Yes, you have to,” Doran says, cutting off Harot mid-whine.

A low brown muzzle pokes its way out of Star’s bedroom, nose twitching. Small sharp teeth are revealed as the fox who can only be Harot snaps at the piece of paper pinned beneath Patch’s scaly foot. It flashes into a miniature blizzard of snowflakes, and when they settle, a proud husky with a strangely dusky coat stands in the hallway. He takes a tentative step and growls.

“I smell,” he says in a voice much deeper than Harot’s. “I smell like dog. I hate this job.”

“What about them?” Patch squawks as Harot and Winston pad off down the thawing hallway. He gestures to Star’s open doorway with a damp wing. “We can’t leave them here.”

“Why not?” Doran asks coldly, preening his smooth chest feathers. “They won’t remember. Just because you want a snack…”

Patch hops from foot to foot.

“Please, please please please, Doran? I won’t make a mess, I promise.”

Doran shrugs, a funny little hop of his wings.

“If you absolutely must,” he says. “Follow along when you’ve finished.”

He flaps his wings twice and gets airborne, careening down the hallway past my doorway before looping around to follow Harot and Winston out the side door.

Patch is laughing a caw-like laugh, over and over and I grip my saucepan and step into the hallway. The snow is really beginning to melt now, rivulets running down the walls in tiny streams and raining down from the ceiling in wet clumps.

I step into Star’s doorway and try not shriek with terror. Patch is gone - there is a horrible thing there in his place, a lumpy oozing oily mass the size of a polar bear with a gaping maw lined with blunt gnashing teeth.

And a saucepan half stuck in its horrible head.

The thing turns to look at me as I wrench the saucepan free and swing it around for another pass. But its no longer there - its just Patch the crow, drooping feathers trailing on the floor. He squalls at me and I smack him into the wall with the saucepan. He slides down slowly, stunned, leaving an oily stain behind. I grab him by a wing and fling him into the closet, pushing the chest of drawers in front of the door. There’s a terrifying moment when something large slams into the door and the hinges squeal, but the splintery wood holds.

I drop the saucepan from my trembling fingers and follow it to the floor, my legs no longer up to the task of holding me up. There’s a buzzing in my brain, from adrenaline or fear, and as it clears I hear muffled shouting.

Ikiak, and one of the cousins, Aituserk, are tied up to Star’s bed. They are gagged with dirty rags that I struggle to remove. Aituserk is crying, her tears soaking the filthy cloth. When I remove Ikiak’s gag he spits to get the taste out of his mouth. His dark eyes are huge.

“Jane,” he says, his voice awed. Between us we cut Aituserk out of her ropes and help her stand. She collapses immediately onto the bed, her eyes staring dully at the wall.

“What happened?” Ikiak and I say together. He grins, but his eyes are still hollow.

The closet door shudders again.

“What is that?” I ask, feeling like jumping out of my skin. “And why were all those animals here?” Snowmelt drips onto my head.

Ikiak shakes his head, rubbing his wrists where they’re raw. The water is splashing onto him too, and where it hits the bloody wounds disappear. He doesn’t seem to notice, but I’m staring, wide-eyed.

He turns and his eyebrows fly up.

“Jane,” he says, surprised. “What are you doing here?” Behind him, Aituserk stands up, holding her head and looking confused. The snow has melted away entirely. I suddenly remember my frostbite and pain flares like fire in my fingers and toes.

“But-” I remember what Doran had said. They won’t remember…

Ikiak grins, and there’s grit around his mouth from the gag.

“Mother An is going to kill you, wearing boots inside like that,” he says cheerfully. “You’d better run back home before she catches you.”

I dart a glance at the closet. That much seems quiet, at least.

“What about Star,” I ask, turning to leave. “Has there been any news?”

“Who?” Aituserk asks. 

Not all the cousins remember my nickname for Star. “Mikki,” I say to clarify.

“Jane, we don’t know who you’re talking about,” Ikiak says carefully. “I think you’d better get home.”


	4. Chapter 4

I trudge home unhappily. The snow is all but gone, worn down to the permafrost like the storm never happened. Just as Star’s family seems to think she never happened. My mother fusses over my fingers, but she too seems to have forgotten Star. Every time I think of her, alone and forgotten, my heart twists. I spend the day huddled next to the stove in a blanket cloak, staring out at the snow. Star’s house fails to explode into smithereens, and I worry about what has happened to the monster locked in Star’s closet.

I’m sipping steaming soup when there’s a knock at the door. Mother looks up from her book as Father opens the door. A blast of cold whisks in and I huddle further into my blanket. I can’t seem to get warm. Voices murmur behind me and the door swings open a second time.

“Look at me, girl-child,” Mother An’s voice says firmly. 

I turn and she’s holding out a mug of hot tea, alone in the room. I put my bowl of soup aside and take it from her to be polite. Mother has been plying me with hot liquids all day.

“How are your hands?” she asks, catching the one not clutching the mug in her warm one. She grunts in a way that seems to be positive and drops it, lowering herself into the armchair opposite mine.

“Now,” she says, patting my knee through blanket. “I think you know something about that missing granddaughter of mine.”

For the first time that day, I feel hopeful.

“You remember Star?”

She smiles at me and leans back in the chair, the soft red velvet plumping out around her gray hair.

I’ve never met my grandparents - my mother and father rarely mention the life they had lived before coming to the north. Now that I think of it, it seems strange. Mother An is the grandmother I’ve never had.

“I am too old for spirit dreams and nonsense,” she says, her wrinkled hands folded together in her lap. 

“But why has everyone else forgotten?” I ask, scrubbing angrily at my eyes with swollen fingers. “I woke up yesterday and-”

Mother An shushs me with a finger to her lips.

“It’s not good to talk of such things,” she says in her creaky voice. “Drink your tea, then tell me about the day Star got lost on the ice.”

I tell her as much as I remember - the same story I told Ikiak, but this time I don’t leave anything out. Mother An frowns when I mention the crow, the network of wrinkles shifting across her face. But she doesn’t seem as if she disbelieves me. 

“This is bad,” she murmurs when I finally finished. “There is trouble in the spirit world, and it is not good for mortal eyes to see evidence of a spirit war. You have gained some sight, and that is dangerous.”

I give a sudden start, remembering.

“But yesterday - everyone was frozen - there was a monster in Star’s room!”

I imagine I can hear a growling roar from that horrible maw and shudder.

“It is no good to mention it,” Mother An says hurriedly. “Forgotten, such things will sleep. It is our speech that will bring it back to force. The snow curse, the forgetting - the more you speak of them, the truer they become. That is where the power comes from.”

From the corner of my eye, I can see frost glinting on the edge of the stove, though the flames still roar within. Mother An’s lap is full of snow. I swig some of the soup to drown the questions I want to ask, but its has gone cold and slimy and fills my throat like fear.

Mother An brushes the snow away, smiling faintly.

“Don’t be afraid, Jane. You saw a fallen spirit die and it gave you some sight. You can see through their tricks now, and that makes you stronger than most. I fear Star will not be so lucky.”

“But what can we do?” I ask, dumping the dregs of the soup into the sink. “No one will even look for her.”

As I say it, I know it will be true. Her own brother does not remember her, and Mother An and I will never convince them of what they have forgotten. I wonder how their forgetful minds will explain away her sets of clothes and the extra bedroom.

“Someone must look,” Mother An says, looking into the fire. The flames dance in her eyes and they seem flat and dead. When she turns them on me, I take a step backward without thinking.

“I want to find Star,” I say hesitantly. And I do. But the cold and the snow and the monster are out there and I don’t know if I can face them.

“You are the only one who can,” Mother An says. “If I thought I still had the energy to dance with spirits, I would be out there already.” There is no reproach in her tone, only careful calm.

“But I’m not one of the people,” I protest. “I don’t know anything about the spirits.” But I want to help. I am realizing that my fears are the things that Star has been facing alone. Without me there to help her.

“Of course you are one of us,” Mother An says. “Your mother has her roots here, and even if she didn’t, you have been raised here since birth. You are one of the family.” As is Star, she leaves unspoken.

I sink back into my chair, relishing the warmth.

“I don’t know what to do,” I say finally. I wonder where my parents are. What would they say if they knew Mother An was in here trying to convince me to venture out after a girl they don’t remember?

“Your mother has taught you much that can be useful,” Mother An says. “Her story of the Northern Lights has its history in truth. It is at their foot that mortals may find the gate. I fear that is where Star has gone.”

“But what if she - “ I choke on the words and start again. “What if Star really did get lost? What if she’s out somewhere in the snow-”

“Lost in the snow and then immediately forgotten by all who knew her?” Mother An says. “There is more at work here than weather.”

She pulls herself out of her chair, bones creaking, and I stand with her. She moves over to the door with a rare sort of impatience and runs her fingers along the doorframe.

“Solid iron,” she mutters. “Your mother wasn’t taking any chances.” The frame looks like wood to me, but I don’t bother mentioning it. “Ah,” she says, yanking something down from the lip of the oak. She holds it out to me and I take it.

Its a huge knife, as long as my forearm, its cloth-wrapped hilt as wide as my wrist. The blade is split down its length, half iron and half silver, and though the two halves are different they seem melded together, the joining edge blurred as they swirl into each other. For a moment it seems the join is twisting and I blink my suddenly watery eyes. The dagger is old, the iron pitted with rust and the silver blackened with tarnish. But when I wrap my fingers around the wide hilt, the blemishes seem to fall away. The cloth brightens under my fingers, from a faded brown to a bright scarlet. The hilt shrinks until it fits comfortably into my hand.

I look up at Mother An, surprised and not exactly pleased. I don’t want to think what I’ll need to do with a magical dagger. But she seems shocked as well, her brown eyes wide. 

“Its too bad your mother didn’t inherit any of the sight,” Mother An says. “It seems she would have been quite formidable.”

“It’s nearly time to go, Jane,” she says, pulling on her parka. 

“Don’t forget your new dagger.”

Mother An tramps back through the snow alone, not looking back at the thin silhouette in the window. The bones of her feet grind together in her boots and her face creases against the wind as she mounts the low step to the house. Shivers rip through her - she is always cold, no matter how many layers she puts on. She feels her age like an obscuring mist, making everything difficult. It is both frustrating and numbing to know that the world no longer expects anything of her. As if she could fade like ashes into the snow, with only a gentle steam to mark her passing from the world.

She shakes such thoughts aside as the door latch finally gives under her clumsy mittened fingers. The air inside is blessedly warm, and she drinks it in as she struggles to free herself from the anchors of cold weather.

There is no one in the main room but Akna, standing in the tiled kitchen and staring at the cabinets as if she’s trying to remember something. Mother An can remember her as a girl, and in that moment of blank contemplation, she can see the girlishness in Akna’s face still. And then Akna spots her and the moment shatters like glass.

“Mother,” Akna says, deferential. Her tone is only slightly confused, and she drifts into the hallway.

Mother An sighs the sigh of the old confronted with the folly of the young and sinks into her rocking chair. Her knitting lies abandoned beside it - a skill taught by Jane’s mother that she can’t seem to find the enthusiasm for. What good is looped wool against the bitter cold of the North?

Her chair has shuffled to be beside the dog run, and the dogs are still inside after the previous nights’ snow. The smell of wet animal is ferocious and sharp, but Mother An has smelled worse. When the snow melts and dampness seeps into everything, the whole north stinks of rot.

The dogs are asleep, snuffling to themselves, but for one reddish husky who sits with his chin on his paws. His mournful dark eyes lock with hers, then dart to the dog biscuits on the counter.

“If you think I’m going to hoist myself up to get a treat for you, you’ve got another think coming,” Mother An says. “Too many treats ruin a sled dog.”

The dog barks sharply, then settles into a low whine. As the tone becomes unbearable, it grows into words.

“I am no dog,” the dog says through yellow canines. His ears flick irritably.

“Is that you, reynard?” Mother An asks peaceably. “Whatever possessed you?”

“It wasn’t my idea,” the dog grumbles. “But I have to stay undercover, don’t I?”

“By becoming the whipping boy of a bunch of crows?” 

“How else I am I supposed to gather information?”

“You could always try getting old,” Mother An says, leaning down to pick up her knitting and listening to the crackles in her back. “Then no one will take notice of you.”

“If you’re just going to sit around feeling sorry for yourself,” the dog says, “I might have to revise my opinion of you, Old Mother. A friend told me you would help us.”

“I’m in no state to help anyone, pup,” Mother An says. “But I am sending help your way.”

“The girl?” the dog asks, his ears flicking up again. “What good will she be? All I know is that Doran wants her.”

“Doran wants her because she saw one of his scouts fall,” Mother An pauses for emphasis, “to a golden arrow.”

The dog whuffs out his breath, getting to his feet in a mess of limbs and scrabbly claws.

“Then it really is war.”

Mother An nods.

“She has some sight,” the dog says, making it half a question.

Mother An nods again. “And a history.” 

The dog has begun pacing, his nails clicking against the cement floor of the dog run.

“She will need help getting past the gatekeeper,” he growls finally.

“Most likely,” Mother An agrees.

“What about…?” the dog lets the question trail off, nodding his head towards the hallway. Towards the sounds that have been emanating, unheard by most, from what used to Star’s closet.

“Now that is something that I can take care of,” Mother An says, a hint of a grin on her lips.

“Then I will take my leave of this ridiculous glamour,” the dog says. “Good luck, Old Mother.”

Mother An turns just in time to see a flurry of snow where the dog had stood. In its place appears a small fox, its coat patchy white and brown. He nods to her once, then bounds through the door just as one of the cousins opens it to cast the dogs into the cold.


End file.
